General Electric reported today that the beginning of 2014 is off to a good start. Profits from its industrial segment rose 12 percent to $3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2014. Double digit growth was seen in five of its nine growth regions. Infrastructure orders were valued at $23.7 billion, flat with the same […]
All of the current production issues are relegated to the northern fully integrated steel mills. One of our service center contacts laid out the production scenario and how it is impacting the other northern steel producers: “The Great Lakes outage, and then accident during repair, and the Gary reduction in output is the important factor […]
Steel Market Update found flat rolled steel prices to be higher this week. As mentioned in our first article, pricing is not even across the country and we are seeing some flexibility in the numbers in the south compared to those in the Midwest. The Midwest is where all of the mill production disruptions are […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data through Tuesday, April 15th for imported steel scheduled to arrive into the United States during the month of April. Based on this early license data (knowing it can be misleading) we are projecting total steel imports will exceed the 3.5 million net tons forecast for March. Our […]
The convoy of freighters headed to Minnesota under US and Canadian Coast Guard escort arrived safely on Monday morning. The ships dispersed to begin loading iron ore pellets and to queue up for the return convoy east across the Great Lakes to the mills. USCG Mackinaw is expected to depart Duluth this afternoon to escort […]
SMU recently published an article about the excitement in the aluminum industry regarding automotive applications. We asked for comments from the steel industry on the competition by aluminum for a share of the automotive manufacturing industry. We received the following comments from Ron Krupitzer, vice president, automotive market for the Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI): […]
For the week ending April 12, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,785,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 1.3 percent increase over the previous week but a 2.8 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 74.2 […]
Total shipments of sheet and strip steel products, including hot rolled, cold rolled and all coated products, were down by 3.5 percent YTD compared to the first two months of 2013. In the period December through February compared to the previous three months, the total tonnage was down by 2.3 percent. Comparing YTD shipments for […]
Three of the four indices followed by Steel Market Update posted higher flat rolled steel averages through the end of this past week. CRU made the biggest catch-up move taking their benchmark hot rolled index to $654 per ton, up $21 per ton since the previous week. CRU and SMU HRC indices are now within […]
Year to date scrap exports through February are down by 40.5 percent from the same period last year. Total YTD was 2,034,000 metric tonnes a decline of 1,387,000 tonnes. Figure 1 shows that all major purchasing nations were down on a three month moving average basis. Turkey and China contributed the most to the YTD […]
Coast Guard cutters are still helping iron ore freighters to navigate to their destinations on the Great Lakes. Ore freighters Sam Laud (destination Duluth), Stewart J. Cort and Algoma Discovery (destination Superior), Edwin Gott and Edgar B Speer (destination two Harbors) are in a convoy of five ships underway in Lake Superior at the tip of […]
The following is a release from the The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) on U.S. Heating and Cooling Equipment Shipment Data for the month of February 2014: Residential Storage Water Heaters U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for February 2014 increased 5.8 percent, to 366,057 units, up from 345,853 units shipped in February […]
Service centers and steel brokers within the secondary (non-prime) segment of the flat rolled industry are advising Steel Market Update that prices on secondary are rising just as quickly as prime. Production problems at a number of mills, coupled with logistics problems holding back shipments from some mill locations, has helped tighten inventories of vanilla […]
Ice conditions for the Great Lakes are still pretty severe, particularly for Lake Superior with 83.2 percent of the surface still frozen according to analysis reports from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Total ice coverage on the Lakes as of April 9 is 58.6 percent. With shipping season officially underway in the St. Mary’s […]
Steel Market Update is aware that many buyers and sellers of steel have been keyed in on the variations between various flat rolled steel indexes. In the past, Steel Market Update found the spread between our steel index and those of Platts and CRU to generally be negligible ($1-$10 per ton at any one time). […]
This week was a tough one to figure out where transaction prices actually are at this moment in time. What makes it challenging is mill offers appear to be firm from mill to mill with very little wiggle room at this moment. The second issue making things tough to evaluate pricing is we had a […]
More flat rolled steel mills have joined in and raised flat rolled steel prices over the past couple of days. On Friday, April 4th USS/POSCO sent a letter to their customers advising them that flat rolled steel base prices would rise by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) on all products. UPI opened their June order book […]
Apparent steel supply for February was 9,002,702 net tons, an 8.5 percent increase compared to the same month one year ago. This is due to an increase in finished imports and domestic shipments but a decrease in total US exports. The net trade balance between imports and exports was a surplus of 2,381,742 net tons […]
The American Institute for International Steel reported “February 2014 showed mixed to disappointing results for U.S. steel exports.” The following report is from an AIIS press release regarding exports of steel out of the domestic (US) mills during the month of February. Key to the data is NAFTA exports which, according to the AIIS, represent […]
For the week ending March 29, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,762,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 3.2 percent decrease over the previous week and a 3.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.3 […]
On Friday morning, April 4th, Nucor became the first mill to announce a new wave of flat rolled steel price increases. In a letter to their customers, the Nucor Sheet Mill managers advised that effective immediately, minimum base prices would be as follows: Hot Rolled = $34.25/cwt ($685 per ton)Cold Rolled = $40.75/cwt ($815 per […]
Steel Market Update began this week with an article on Sunday evening titled, “This Could Be a Tumultuous Week.” Looking back over the past five days that title was an understatement. This week has been tumultuous times ten. Why? U.S. Steel can’t seem to catch a break. They now have steelmaking operations temporarily suspended at […]
All of the indexes followed by Steel Market Update saw their averages on hot rolled, cold rolled and coated rise this past week (except Platts which remained the same). We are seeing the indices moving higher very quickly as the domestic steel mills firm up their order books at the previously announced $660 level on […]
Total steel exports decreased 6.1 percent in February over January to 904,131 net tons (NT), below both the 3 and 12 month moving averages (MMA). Compared to the same month last year, total February exports were down 12.8 percent. Of the select products we follow at Steel Market Update, hot rolled exports showed the greatest […]
The following is a report which is normally provided to only our Premium Level members. It is a detailed analysis of flat rolled, long products and semi-finished imports through the month of March 2014. Written by Peter Wright, we analyze how accurate license data is and provide a table using three month moving averages to […]
As Steel Market Update has mentioned in the past we encourage and welcome all viewpoints on topics. A recent letter written by David Phelps, the retired president of the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS), entitled “Anti-Dumping Cases Threatened, Now What?” elicited the following response: “I appreciate the opportunity to comment on your April 1, […]
The spread between domestic (U.S.) hot rolled prices (FOB mill) and the world export hot rolled coil pricing rose this week to $146 per net ton after having shrunk to $115 last week. This jump represents a $31 per ton jump in the spread in one week (based on SMU numbers not Platts $655 number). […]
The US Department of Commerce released Final Census numbers for the month of February 2014. The 3,285,874 net tons was the highest level for imports since July 2007 when they were 3,288,054 NT. In the table below we have provided updated twelve month and three month moving averages through the month of February. The March […]
In an email sent late in the afternoon on Monday, March 17th, ArcelorMittal USA announced a price increase on all of their new flat rolled orders, with specific base prices at $33.00 for hot rolled, $39.50 for cold rolled, and $39.50 for galvanized. The mill justified their increase by stating “Despite the recent drop in […]
We have been hearing of a very strong booking week at many of the domestic steel mills this past week. With the hot end of USS Great Lakes down and other flat rolled steel production issues within the domestic steel mill ranks, we have seen a tightening of flat rolled steel pricing. We have heard […]